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Monday, January 09, 2012

Church Record Sunday: Film, The Shakers

A GenealogyWise member shared with me a movie done in the early 1970s that featured one of her Shaker ancestors. This documentary includes interviews with some of the last Shakers, all women, and is an interesting look at their lives and their dying way of life.

While The Shakers is not a church record per se it is a great piece of history that can benefit anyone with Shaker ancestors. Aside from the interviews and facts given, the women also sing some traditional Shaker hymns.

2 comments:

Ohhh, I'll have to watch the movie. I've had an interest in Shakers for years, mostly because of their attitudes about work and the beautiful objects the created.

So this is an interesting thing to me that someone has found a Shaker ancestor -- considering that Shakers were celibate after they became Shakers. Her ancestor must have had a descendant before becoming a Shaker.

In this case the "ancestor" was a great-aunt. The Shakers took homeless children and other children into the community. While my guess is many of those children left the community as adult, in this case the great-aunt became a Shaker.

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About Me

Gena Philibert-Ortega holds a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and a Master’s degree in Religion. Presenting on various subjects involving genealogy, women’s studies and social history, Gena has spoken to groups throughout the United States and virtually to audiences worldwide. Gena is the author of hundreds of articles published in genealogy newsletters and magazines including Internet Genealogy, Family Chronicle, GenWeekly and the WorldVitalRecords newsletter. She is the author of the books, From the Family Kitchen (F + W Media, 2012), Cemeteries of the Eastern Sierra (Arcadia Publishing, 2007), and Putting the Pieces Together . Gena is the editor of the Utah Genealogical Association’s journal Crossroads. An instructor for the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, Gena has written courses about social media and Google. She serves as President for the So. California Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists and is a board member of the Utah Genealogical Association. Her current research interests include social history, community cookbooks, signature quilts and researching women’s lives.